Dead or Alive - By Tom Clancy Page 0,98

how the world was supposed to look and act. It was a common failing among the politically astute.

Clark said, “Well, that’s up to him, I suppose, and after twenty-nine years, I guess I have my retirement pretty well maxed out, eh?”

“Pretty well,” Alden agreed, with a smile about as genuine as a man about to close the sale on a 1971 Ford Pinto.

Clark stood. He did not extend his hand, but Alden did, and Clark had to take it out of simple good manners, and good manners were always disarming to the assholes of the world.

“Oh, I almost forgot: Someone wants to see you. You know a James Hardesty?”

“Served with him once, yeah,” Clark replied. “Isn’t he retired by now?”

“No, not yet. He’s working with operational archives, part of a project for the DO we’ve been running for about fourteen months—sort of a classified history project. Anyway, his office is on the fourth floor, past the kiosk by the elevators.” Alden handed over the room number, scribbled on a blank sheet of paper.

Clark took it and folded it into his pocket. Jimmy Hardesty was still here? How the hell did he evade the attention of people like this Alden prick? “Okay, thanks. I’ll catch him on the way out.”

“They need me in there?” Ding asked when Clark came out the door.

“No, he just wanted me this time.” Clark adjusted his neck-tie in a prearranged signal, to which Chavez did not react. And with that, they took the elevator down to the fourth floor. They walked past the kiosk staffed by blind vendors who sold such things as candy bars and Cokes—it always struck visitors as creepy and sinister, but for the CIA it was a laudable way to provide employment to the handicapped. If they were really blind. One could never be sure of anything in this building, but that was just part of the mystique.

They found Hardesty’s office and knocked on the cipher-locked door. It opened in a few seconds.

“Big John,” Hardesty said in greeting.

“Hey, Jimmy. What’re you doing in this rat hole?”

“Writing the history of operations that nobody will ever read, at least not while we’re alive. You’re Chavez?” he asked Ding.

“Yes, sir.”

“Come on in.” Hardesty waved them into his cubbyhole, which did have two spare chairs and almost enough room for the extra legs, plus a worktable that acted as an ersatz desk.

“What year are you in?” John asked.

“Would you believe 1953? I spent all last week on Hans Tofte and the Norwegian freighter job. That job had a real body count, and they were not all bad guys. Cost of doing business back then, I guess, and the sailors on the ship should have thought twice before signing on.”

“Before our time, Jimmy. Did you talk to Judge Moore about it? I think he had a piece of that operation.”

Hardesty nodded. “He was in last Friday. The judge must have been a handful in his younger days, before he took that seat behind the bench. Him and Ritter both.”

“What’s Bob Ritter doing now?”

“You didn’t hear? Shit. Died three months ago down in Texas, liver cancer.”

“How old was he?” Chavez asked.

“Seventy-five. He was at MD Anderson Cancer Center, down in Texas, so he had the best treatment available, but it didn’t work.”

“Everybody dies of something,” Clark observed. “Sooner or later. Nobody told us about Ritter over in England. I wonder why.”

“The current administration didn’t like him much.”

That made sense, John thought. He was a warrior from the worst of the bad old days who’d worked in Redland against the main enemy of the time, and cold warriors died hard. “I’ll have to hoist a drink to his memory. We butted heads occasionally, but he never back-shot me. I wonder about that Alden guy.”

“Not our kind of people, John. I’m supposed to do a full report on people we whacked along the way, what laws might have been violated, that sort of thing.”

“So what can I do for you?” Clark asked his host.

“Alden pitched retirement to you?”

“Twenty-nine years. And I’m still alive. Kinda miraculous when you think about it,” John observed with a moment’s sober reflection.

“Well, if you need something to do, I have a number for you to call. Your knowledge is an asset; you can make money off it. Buy Sandy a new car, maybe.”

“What sort of work?”

“Something you will find interesting. Don’t know if it’ll be your kind of thing, but what the hell. Worst case, they’ll buy lunch.”

“Who is it?”

Hardesty didn’t answer the question. Instead

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